The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter LP - Purple Vinyl (/500)

 
Forge Again (2026)

I know you've been waiting.  We're almost through March.  When is it going to happen?  When am I going to proclaim something as the first great record of 2026?  I am aware no one is actually waiting for me to do this, but...it's time and probably not a surprise of the band that takes the crown.

Never Felt Bitter is the third full length from one of my absolute favorite active bands, The Pretty Flowers.  They initially popped up on my radar in 2018 when Dirt Cult put out their debut full length, Why Trains Crash.  Since the moment I first heard that record, I have been a vocal advocate insisting that everyone on the planet earth that can hear my voice or read my words must check this band out.  And they are a band that never lets me down.  Each time they put out a new album, I find myself enamored with the new songs the same way their debut captured my imagination eight years ago.

For the uninitiated, The Pretty Flowers are a top notch indie rock band, with major power pop leanings.  When I'm doing the lazy compare-to-other-bands thing, they always make me think of a cross between Built To Spill and The Weakerthans.  This is at least the third time I'm writing that I'm sure, but when I listen to their albums, that's where my brain goes.  Lyrically and vocally, the song wringing reminds me of The Weakerthans in the way they tell stories of regular people, but where Pretty Flowers up the ante is the absolute onslaught of harmonies and backing vocals.  They make these songs soar and fully differentiate themselves from the more intentionally sparse Weakerthans sound.

And that separation is more prominent in the music which accomplishes the herculean task of looking at a Built To Spill record and saying 'I can make poppy songs with insane guitar work too' and then just do it.  You have these supremely catchy songs, with hooks just falling out of them, and suddenly...boom.  Massive guitar solo/pyrotechnics.  And not in that annoying, self indulgent way that a lot of bands do (even Built To Spill is guilty of that self indulgence from time to time).  These guitar passages serve the song, rather than having the song be a set up to show off.  It's a tricky balance that I don't think many bands are able to pull off, but yet The Pretty Flowers do it time and time again over three albums.  It's so good it almost makes me angry.

I'm not the sort of person that's going to write a lengthy technical deconstruction of an album.  I'm not a good enough writer to pull off examining a record and providing a dissertation of its poetic merits.  I can only tell you how a record makes me feel.  Never Felt Bitter makes me feel great.  In a time where there are so many things to look around and be depressed about, a new record by The Pretty Flowers is one of those things that I find tremendously uplifting.  More than anything, I feel like it's important to hunt for joy these days, and man do I find a lot of it in this album.  Stop reading this and go buy it.

The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter:

https://forgeagainrecords.bandcamp.com/album/never-felt-bitter

Obits - L.E.G.I.T. LP - Clear Vinyl (/300)

 
Outer Battery (2025)

The legacy of Rick Froberg is immense and wide ranging.  His legacy in music is also very often tied to the legacy of John Reis, due to their collaborations in Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes.  However, when Hot Snakes stopped playing a few years after Audit In Progress came out I personally wondered if we'd see a fourth collaboration or if Rick would step back from music a bit like when Drive Like Jehu stopped playing.  The answer was neither as he started playing in a new band, Obits.

I vividly remember the fervor of the band's formation coming to light on ye olde Swami message board.  A bootleg of their first show was bandied about and everyone seemed pretty stoked on the prospect of getting some records.  The first time I saw Obits was at a place called Santos Party House in December of 2008.  They played with The Night Marchers and at the time their debut full length hadn't been released yet.  Discogs is telling me that their first 7" was out at that point, but truthfully I don't remember it that way.  I'm probably wrong though, who am I to argue with Discogs.  What I can tell you is that Obits ripped through a set of killer songs and you know a band is hot when they blow you away with a bunch of stuff that you don't already know.

Three full lengths were released in the following years, all of which I loved.  Interspersed were a bunch of singles and L.E.G.I.T. compiles them all for easy listening (finally getting to the point in the third paragraph).  This comp was originally released on CD in 2014, but I'm excited to have it on vinyl.  I love these songs and as much as I adore collecting 7"s, it can be something of a fussy experience to sit around trying to listen to a bunch of them all at once.  One flip of a record vs. putting on and flipping five different 7"s is a more relaxing experience.

And these songs are not just leftovers.  They are killer, killer songs.  To this day my absolute favorite Obits song is "Put It In Writing," the B side to their first 7" "One Cross Apiece."  And they lead off this LP with that one-two punch that sets the stage for the excellence that follows.  This is an essential pickup if you like Obits.  Sure, the last four live tracks aren't as exciting as to me as the studio recordings, but I've never really been a live album sort of guy (with very few exceptions).  It bums me out thinking about how we don't have years of future Froberg masterpieces in front of us, but I am comforted by all of the ones he provided us in the past.

Obits - L.E.G.I.T.:

https://obits.bandcamp.com/album/l-e-g-i-t

Casual - Demo Sessions 12"

Dope Folks (2019)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for thirty plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

This weekend I'm going to go see Hieroglyphics play live for the first time.  Though I have seen Del The Funky Homosapien and Souls Of Mischief, I've never seen the whole crew together.  One of the main reasons I want to see this show so badly is to finally be able to see Casual live.  Casual's debut album, Fear Itself, is in my upper echelon of hip hops albums.  I'm always in search of anything that sounds like the early 90s Hieroglyphics sound, often to no avail.  But what better way to find sounds like that than from the people that made them originally.  

Dope Folks put out this EP a few years ago that has six Casual songs that predate Fear Itself.  While EPs are not my favorite way to consume songs (which I know is blasphemy in hip hop, but I just love listening to all length albums), there was no way that I wasn't going to pick this up.  Though like a lot of things I'm writing about lately, it's taken me years to get around to saying something on this site about it.  

Of the six songs, one of them is a remix of the Fear Itself standout, "Me-O-Mi-O."  I do love me an early 90s remix.  To this day I'll contend that the remixed version of Del The Funky Homosapien's "Wrongplace" is superior to the original and it's not the only song I feel that way about.  I don't really think this remix is better than the album version, but that one is an all timer and has been lodged in my head for over 30 years.  The remix is an interesting take on it, but is more of a novelty for me on this release.

The main events are the five previously unreleased tracks.  They vary in quality both from a sound quality standpoint (these are demos after all) and song quality.  Some of the slower tracks like "Fear No Evil" and "Gotta Lotta" don't hit as hard for me.  The production and beats are OK, but they don't really service Casual's flow in the way that much of his classic material does. 

That isn't the case at all with side two of this EP.  "Where They At," Can You Feel It?" and "Rippers" all hit it out of the park.  The beats are more uptempo than what you'll find on the first side and this lets Casual uncork his rapid fire lyrical madness.  He's got an effortless flow that veers from freestyles to battle raps to punchlines, sometimes all in the same bar.  He's one of the most overlooked MCs out there and the fact that he was cranking out songs like this when he was still in high school (which is also when I was in high school) flabbergasts me.

Casual - Demo Sessions 12":

https://soundcloud.com/dope-folks-records/casual-fear-no-evil-demo-sessions-ep-coming-soon?in=dope-folks-records/sets/df0094-casual-demo-sessions-ep#t=0:00

Short Dogs Grow - Quit While You're Young 12"

 
Lil' Hunka Gold (2025)

Short Dogs Grow sent me this 12" of theirs which is the first release that the band has done since the late 1980s.  They were/are based out of San Francisco and put out a couple of LPs on Rough Trade once upon a time.  This new EP has two of the four original members, Tom Pitts and Carmela Thompson, joined by a new drummer.  

I wasn't super familiar with the band's original work, so I checked out a few songs and they were pretty fast, kind of fuzzy guitar rock that isn't really out of place in the mid to late 80s Bay Area scene.  This new EP leans on a lot more of an rootsy rock and roll sound, with songs that don't have the same sort of mph as the older ones I listened to.  These are decidedly mid tempo and while they lean towards that alt country sound a bit, have a little more aggression and punk influence.

Main singer Tom Pitts' vocals are definitely an acquired taste, and thus far, I have not acquired that taste.  They've got a warble to them that really jumps out from the music in a way that I personally find distracting, though others may find to be the highlight of the group.  I know a fair amount of people who can't get into Leatherface because they don't like Frankie Stubbs' vocals, yet for me, they are one of the main reasons I love that band so much.

This isn't bad, it's a solid EP with well written songs.  If you like some root in your music, might be up your alley more than mine.

Short Dogs Grow - Quit While You're Young:
https://shortdogsgrow.bandcamp.com/album/quit-while-youre-young

Gentlemen Rogues - Half Empty, Half Fool 7" - Pink Vinyl (59/100)

 
Self Released (2025)

It's becoming a recurring thing lately where I say that I'm writing about a record I've had for too long and that I should have probably written about it already.  This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as it means that anything I get now runs the risk of getting old as I try to prioritize the records that already are old.  It's a vicious cycle and no one cares, but I do feel bad that I'm only getting to this Gentlemen Rogues record as it's not only great, but Danny is a sweetheart.

A sweetheart that always seems to be in bands that can crank out tunes like nobody's business.  The A side is "Half Empty, Half Fool" which is a song from their excellent 2024 full length Surface Noise.  This version has been updated since the full length version, having been remixed and remastered and (so the Bandcamp page says) "partially re-recorded."  Now, if I'm being truly honest, my ears can't hear a whole lot of difference between the new version and the one on the album, though I've also never claimed to be an audiophile with a keen ear for nuance.  But this doesn't really matter to me as the song sounded great before and it sounds great now. 

The B side is a cover of the T.Rex song "Children of the Revolution."  The Rogues do a great job taking ownership of this tune and really making it sound like one of their own, while at the same time retaining enough of the original that it stands out.  With its mid-tempo, chunky guitar hooks and vocal melodies, it's right at home with their other songs.

I love me a good 7".  We don't see as many of them these days as they are so cost prohibitive to make and sell and buy (and process?).  But the old school album-track-on-side-one-and-cover-song-on-side-two gimmick is one that I will always get behind.  Even though Gentleman Rouges have the band name that I am most likely to misspell while writing about them, it's always a pleasure to add a new record of theirs to the collection and to let the world know how great they are.  And I didn't even mention Jill this time.

Gentlemen Rogues - Half Empty, Half Fool 7":

https://gentlemenrogues.bandcamp.com/album/half-empty-half-fool-2025-single

Brothers Of The Same Mind – Gotta Have Style 2xLP

 
Dust & Dope / Hip-Hop Enterprise (2021)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for thirty plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

Brothers of the Same Mind were active in the late 80s and early 90s.  Hailing from Sir Mix-A-Lot's backyard in Seattle, they had a few indie singles and EPs during that time, but the full length album that they were working had never been released until Dust & Dope and Hip Hop Enterprise stepped up to finally unleash their shelved album into the world in 2021 - 30 years after it should have originally come out.  This is another one of those records that I've had in my to-write-about piles for way, way too long.  But better late than never.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the production.  For material recorded between 1989 and 1991, it has that early hip hop sound.  I always feel like Low End Theory is the key marking point in hip hop production in that year.  Before its release there was a sound and after its release the sound moved forward very quickly.  Low End Theory isn't the only album in 1991 that ushered in that next stage of golden era production, but it's always the one that stands out to me as I noticed it in real time as it happened when I was 14.

So there are times where the production on this album sounds a little dated, with one foot still in that late 1980s sound.  Which, don't get me wrong, I like that sound, but it's one that I need to be in the right mood to listen to.  When I am in the mood, Brothers of the Same Mind do that sound as good as anyone else of that era.  The beats are upbeat, the samples are not subtle and there's lots of hooks built on scratching key vocal parts of contemporaries.  If you think for a second KRS-One's "Gotta Have Style" lyric isn't the foundation of the title track, you've been asleep at the wheel.  And it's not the only time we hear KRS on a sample.

Lyrically, the MCs all do a great job.  There's at least four of them, assuming DJ Swift doesn't end up on the microphone, but this is another example of me not really knowing who is rapping when as they don't identify themselves all that frequently.  But again, for late 80s, super early 90s, they hold their own with any of that pre-Low End Theory crew.  Not that everything is perfect.  I do not like the R&B sung hook of "Cool Drink (In The Springtime)" at all.  I never liked that crossover appeal sort of thing and when ever you get someone singing the hook like that it's an immediate turn off for me.  But a song like that is the exception, not the rule on this album.

I love finding these unreleased gems getting another chance 30 years later.  It makes me wonder what could have been had they been released as planned.  It makes me bummed that I had to wait so long to hear them.  But it mostly makes me feel relieved that albums like this are not just out there in someone's closet rotting away.  Stuff like this deserves to be heard.

Brothers Of The Same Mind – Gotta Have Style:

https://soundcloud.com/dustdope/brothers-of-the-same-mind-gotta-have-style-snippets

Red Devil Ryders - Is It Love? LP

Feral Kid (2025)

I don't have a lot of records sent to me for free to write about, but I do get them on occasion.  It's always a guessing game on whether or not I'll be interested or even if I'll be able to get through it without weeping in the corner halfway through.  Unfortunately it tends to sit in the middle a lot with lots of records that are fine, but aren't really blowing me away.  Case in point: Red Devil Ryders.

This is a record that's the very definition of good.  It's got solid songs, decent enough hooks and a jangly guitar sound that is nothing if not pleasant.  It leans on the indie rock side of the fence, with a healthy amount of power pop thrown in to keep things lively.  I would even go so far as to say it reminds me of a band I really love, Title Tracks.  But they only remind me of Title Tracks, they never quite cross that line into being a great band on their own.

I can't even say for sure what's holding it back.  As I listen to it again as I write this, they seem to have everything I'm looking for, at least on paper.  But when the final results are in, I just keep coming back to "this is good."  And it is good.  If you're looking for a good, catchy record with Title Tracks vibes, by all means check this out.  Unlike some of the records that get sent to me, I'm going to keep this one.  I don't know how often I'll listen to it, but I'm sure the next time that I do, I'll be reminded that it's good.

Red Devil Ryders - Is It Love?:

https://feral-kid-records.bandcamp.com/album/is-it-love

Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep 2xLP - Black & Silver Splatter Vinyl

Vinyl Me Please (2022, Reissue)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for thirty plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

The idea of horrorcore rap isn't anything I've ever been interested in.  Violence for the sake of violence in the lyrics, murder fantasy, Geto Boys style storytelling - none of that has ever been anything I've been that interested in listening to.  I wasn't aware of Gravedigger as a thing back in 1994, or if I was I ignored and forgot them because of the whole horrorcore thing.  When I decided to give Wu Tang another chance a few years back, I came across Gravediggaz. I was a little intrigued because of RZA being in the group, but I was way more interested in the fact that Prince Paul was part of it.

6 Feet Deep is the Gravediggaz debut and it definitely has that Wu Tang style of production, which again, is interesting because Prince Paul is the producer on the bulk of it.  He puts his spin on the lo fi aesthetic with deep cut samples and a dark vibe over all.  Lyrically, there's nothing mind blowing here.  Nothing jumps out at me as being so deep into the horrorcore gimmick that the lyrics are offensive or over the top in anything more than a mostly cartoony sort of way.  It's more braggadocios than anything else, I think.

It's the production that keeps engaged, even though I did buy this record knew when it came out and it has taken me nearly four years to get around to writing about it.  It's one of those record that has good beats and I always enjoy it when it's on.  It's just not something I find myself going to super frequently.

Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lIrV3RtOOxnKT13XsZjYCAorwyQHf2hZ0